Caelus wrote:My wife pointed out something interesting about the prehistoric Predacons. I said that everyone was complaining because transforming for them mostly consisted of them just standing up-right. She essentially said, 'So? That's what our ancestors did.'

RhA wrote:Within the next 4 minutes I'll be able to tell you if I liked it. All I want is more of an actual 'beast hunt' going on, instead of one Predacon getting employed by Decepticons.

I agree with you. I haven't seen the movie yet, cuz it didn't air. But the title "Beast Hunters" was a very poor choice for Transformers Prime. It just doesn't fit it. Then again I understand because of the Predacons and such.

Caelus wrote:My wife pointed out something interesting about the prehistoric Predacons. I said that everyone was complaining because transforming for them mostly consisted of them just standing up-right. She essentially said, 'So? That's what our ancestors did.'

Sabrblade wrote:The whole cartoon would have benefited from not having any Predacon-related stuff being forced into it.

Except one thing: cool characters. Predaking was awesome, and for sure one the best characters in the series.

Predaking himself was cool, yes, but only after he finally transformed and gained a personality. Before then, however, his animal antics and all the bone-hunting just felt like they were forced in for some bare-minimum attempt to make some semblance of sense out of the show's new subtitle, when it was so obvious that Darkmount and the Cyber-Matter were the stories the writers wanted to focus on more. They even took Predaking out of the final battle, with his final scene in the finale feeling like a last minute addition that none of the Autobots expressed any real concern about ("The Predacon!... Oh, well, there he goes.")

Doesn't help that they make a movie called "Predacons Rising" that instead focuses on Unicron's rising from the ashes, and only slid in two more Preds who were just generic mooks and a bunch of zombie Preds that could have just as well been made from any other breed of Cybertronian lifeform without anything lost.

It is so painfully obvious that the Predacon angle was just a marketing gimmick thrown in to catch the attention of fanboys/fangirls and consumers, rather than anything necessarily crucial to the main story.

Caelus wrote:My wife pointed out something interesting about the prehistoric Predacons. I said that everyone was complaining because transforming for them mostly consisted of them just standing up-right. She essentially said, 'So? That's what our ancestors did.'

These Predacons left no impression on me whatsoever. Such a shame, the 'faction' (as ill-defined as it has been) has always been a favorite of mine, too. The Preds described in that marketing booklet thing, those were awesome, but not the ones in the actual show.

Noideaforaname wrote:These Predacons left no impression on me whatsoever. Such a shame, the 'faction' (as ill-defined as it has been) has always been a favorite of mine, too. The Preds described in that marketing booklet thing, those were awesome, but not the ones in the actual show.

Good thing there's always "Tales of the Beast Hunters" to fall back on.

Caelus wrote:My wife pointed out something interesting about the prehistoric Predacons. I said that everyone was complaining because transforming for them mostly consisted of them just standing up-right. She essentially said, 'So? That's what our ancestors did.'

Noideaforaname wrote:These Predacons left no impression on me whatsoever. Such a shame, the 'faction' (as ill-defined as it has been) has always been a favorite of mine, too. The Preds described in that marketing booklet thing, those were awesome, but not the ones in the actual show.

Yeah, Darksteel and Skylynx were clumsy, and not the Predacons I expected to encounter in the movie.

Sabrblade wrote:They even took Predaking out of the final battle, with his final scene in the finale feeling like a last minute addition that none of the Autobots expressed any real concern about ("The Predacon!... Oh, well, there he goes.")

I quess they decide that Predaking is to powerfull to be used in final battle, since Autobots have no mean of eliminate him for good, and using Space Bridge trick again would be ridicilous.

Sabrblade wrote:Doesn't help that they make a movie called "Predacons Rising" that instead focuses on Unicron's rising from the ashes, and only slid in two more Preds who were just generic mooks and a bunch of zombie Preds that could have just as well been made from any other breed of Cybertronian lifeform without anything lost.

I Agree with that...

It is so painfully obvious that the Predacon angle was just a marketing gimmick thrown in to catch the attention of fanboys/fangirls and consumers, rather than anything necessarily crucial to the main story.

Sabrblade wrote:They even took Predaking out of the final battle, with his final scene in the finale feeling like a last minute addition that none of the Autobots expressed any real concern about ("The Predacon!... Oh, well, there he goes.")

I quess they decide that Predaking is to powerfull to be used in final battle, since Autobots have no mean of eliminate him for good, and using Space Bridge trick again would be ridicilous.

In addition, they removed him from other important events in season 3. They quickly removed him from the final assault on Darkmount so the Autobots/US military could destroy it easily enough, they had him return to the ship in "Chain of Command" so Miko could beat up Starscream with ease, they kept him out of the action altogether for the next two episodes, and when he finally transformed and lost all of his kind, his character arc then took a backseat to the Cyber Matter story.

As awesome a character he was, he felt really underutilized by the writers. So much so that I feel if both he and Project: Predacon (the experiment, not simply the episode) had not been put into this show, there would have been little, if anything, really that important lost in the process.

Caelus wrote:My wife pointed out something interesting about the prehistoric Predacons. I said that everyone was complaining because transforming for them mostly consisted of them just standing up-right. She essentially said, 'So? That's what our ancestors did.'

I hope I don't accidentally start something, but Predacons Rising was a let down for me.

Was it just me, or did nothing really...happen? It had the feeling of a 'words are spoken, but nothing is said,' kind of deal. Things were happening, but at the same time nothing was happening. Characters came in, said their lines, did their thing almost mechanically (haha, but you get what I mean.)

Also, Predacons Rising? Uh, no. Two more Predacons don't count as 'rising,' writers. They didn't even have that much impact on the plot.

Megatron's "redemption" just felt hollow and forced. "I now know the meaning of oppression"? What the scrap? You were a miner, the lowest of the low, left to be a slave with no one giving a damn about who you are. You know exactly what oppression feels like. Was that the best the writers or whoever could come up with?

I did say, at the end of Season 2, that Starscream could very well return to his old treacherous ways, but I expected him to slowly but surely go back, not in the matter of a scene. That, too, just comes out of nowhere. And for me, it's not character development when it smacks you out of left field. WTH?

All in all, it just felt way too short, way too rushed and honestly, the whole Predacons thing didn't jive with me at all. They don't seem to have much of a point, really.

But that's just me.

Here from the queen's mountain viewHere from the wild dreams come trueFeast like an empress I doOn treasures and tales, never few

Avensis-Mahiya wrote:Was it just me, or did nothing really...happen? It had the feeling of a 'words are spoken, but nothing is said,' kind of deal. Things were happening, but at the same time nothing was happening. Characters came in, said their lines, did their thing almost mechanically (haha, but you get what I mean.)

Since "Deadlock" was written to be the big series finale, this was written after the fact as a self-contained sidestory. The biggest contributions it gave were Optimus's final sacrifice, Megatron's change of heart, Predaking no longer living a lonely life, Unicron removed from Earth, and the AllSpark finally returned to let Cybertron start making new life again (since, as I argued so many times with so may folks back when season 2 ended, even if they restore Cybertron, it can't create new life without the AllSpark returned).

Avensis-Mahiya wrote:Also, Predacons Rising? Uh, no. Two more Predacons don't count as 'rising,' writers. They didn't even have that much impact on the plot.

Agreed. Most they did was give Predaking some company.

Avensis-Mahiya wrote:Megatron's "redemption" just felt hollow and forced. "I now know the meaning of oppression"? What the scrap? You were a miner, the lowest of the low, left to be a slave with no one giving a damn about who you are. You know exactly what oppression feels like. Was that the best the writers or whoever could come up with?

Megatron only "thought" he knew how bad it could feel to be oppressed. Sure, the caste system did oppress him, but he never thought it could be any worse than that. Then, at a point where he'd pretty much reached his all time low and had given up, along comes Robot Satan to really open his eyes to reality with eternal torture and suffering beyond anything he ever possibly imagined. And it took that extent of oppression for him to realize that he had become the very thing he had originally despised so much. The fact that he decided to give up his tyrannical ways after all that shows that he actually learned something: That he had been a single-minded fool for millennia, living a life that made him be no better than the lives of those who once oppressed him all those years ago.

Avensis-Mahiya wrote:I did say, at the end of Season 2, that Starscream could very well return to his old treacherous ways, but I expected him to slowly but surely go back, not in the matter of a scene. That, too, just comes out of nowhere. And for me, it's not character development when it smacks you out of left field. WTH?

I didn't see a treacherous Starscream in this. If anything, he may have once tried to double-cross the Autobots, but Knock Out double-crossed him instead. If you're referring to the last scene with him on the throne before the Preds come to beat him up, that wasn't him being treacherous. Megatron had practically just quit the Decepticons, even disbanding them. Starscream simply saw that the position Megatron once held was now available and attempt to fill in the role himself. He wasn't overthrowing anyone, since there was no one to overthrow anymore.

And, regardless of how loyal to Megatron Starscream had become, his ultimate dream was still to lead the Decepticons. BUT, who says he had to stop being loyal to Megatron to do that? Screamer just chose to stay loyal to Megatron because it is through Megatron that Starscream would get anywhere in life. He could have been named Megatron's heir if he played his cards right. It's not impossible for him to have succeeded Megatron without usurping him.

Avensis-Mahiya wrote:All in all, it just felt way too short,

TV movies tend to be so.

Avensis-Mahiya wrote:way too rushed and honestly, the whole Predacons thing didn't jive with me at all. They don't seem to have much of a point, really.

Caelus wrote:My wife pointed out something interesting about the prehistoric Predacons. I said that everyone was complaining because transforming for them mostly consisted of them just standing up-right. She essentially said, 'So? That's what our ancestors did.'

Avensis-Mahiya wrote:Also, Predacons Rising? Uh, no. Two more Predacons don't count as 'rising,' writers. They didn't even have that much impact on the plot.

Agreed. Most they did was give Predaking some company.

After seeing it, I'm pretty sure the title is referring to the Terrorcon Predacons, not the 2 new ones who showed up, but I could be wrong (they did all kinda rise from the ground and all )

Sabrblade wrote:

Avensis-Mahiya wrote:Megatron's "redemption" just felt hollow and forced. "I now know the meaning of oppression"? What the scrap? You were a miner, the lowest of the low, left to be a slave with no one giving a damn about who you are. You know exactly what oppression feels like. Was that the best the writers or whoever could come up with?

Megatron only "thought" he knew how bad it could feel to be oppressed. Sure, the caste system did oppress him, but he never thought it could be any worse than that. Then, at a point where he'd pretty much reached his all time low and had given up, along comes Robot Satan to really open his eyes to reality with eternal torture and suffering beyond anything he ever possibly imagined. And it took that extent of oppression for him to realize that he had become the very thing he had originally despised so much. The fact that he decided to give up his tyrannical ways after all that shows that he actually learned something: That he had been a single-minded fool for millennia, living a life that made him be no better than the lives of those who once oppressed him all those years ago

I dunno, I think I gotta call BS on that one. Megatron has ordered people (bots mostly, but humans as well) to be executed, tortured and other such delightfully "oppressive" things. He's even attempted (on more than one occasion) the genocide of the entire human race as well as the extermination of all of the Autobots. He raised the dead to serve as his army and had a general disregard for most of those who served under him. I can't see spending 5 minutes or so (okay, a few days, whatever ) being "tormented" by Unicron as being some "eternal torture". I think it was just a cop-out because they had to end the series and for whatever reason, they decided that now in the finale was the time *not* to "kill" any bots (even though there have been some pretty gruesome deaths earlier in the series; Breakdown and Silas for example).

I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. I am that which is, which was, and is yet to come.

And you will know my name is MEGATRON when I lay my vengeance upon you!

xyl360 wrote:After seeing it, I'm pretty sure the title is referring to the Terrorcon Predacons, not the 2 new ones who showed up, but I could be wrong (they did all kinda rise from the ground and all )

Which feels pretty hollow because that's not what us fans have been asking for.

They said at SDCC 2013 that one of the many reasons they made this movie in response to some of the fandom's pleas for things we wanted in the show, like with having more Predacons appear, and they instead give us a Unicron-centric movie with two generic Preds as minor guest stars and a bunch of character-less zombies.

When the fandom said it wanted more Preds, it meant the likes of Lazerback, Ripclaw, Grimwing, Skystalker, Vertebreak, the Abominus dudes, etc. etc. I myself know full well that their giving us all of these in this movie wouldn't be something that was easily feasible for them to do, but for them to claim this as their way of meeting our needs for more Predacons feels like a pretty cheap move.

Might as well have never given us Predacons in the first place. Though Predaking was indeed a cool character who I'm glad we did get, his value to the show's story was anything but necessary.

xyl360 wrote:I dunno, I think I gotta call BS on that one. Megatron has ordered people (bots mostly, but humans as well) to be executed, tortured and other such delightfully "oppressive" things. He's even attempted (on more than one occasion) the genocide of the entire human race as well as the extermination of all of the Autobots. He raised the dead to serve as his army and had a general disregard for most of those who served under him. I can't see spending 5 minutes or so (okay, a few days, whatever ) being "tormented" by Unicron as being some "eternal torture". I think it was just a cop-out because they had to end the series and for whatever reason, they decided that now in the finale was the time *not* to "kill" any bots (even though there have been some pretty gruesome deaths earlier in the series; Breakdown and Silas for example).

Of all the things I could say to respond to this, I think M Sipher put it best when he wrote this:

M Sipher wrote:we really didn't even spend that much time with Megatron, when you think about it. And no, I didn't find his turn out of place...

Here's a dude who's been unstoppable for millennia. More or less nothing has stood in his way outside of cosmic-level stuff... and he's bested even that. Remember how wigged out it was seeing his horrified reaction to the Star Saber? And then he turned around and topped the Star Saber. Broke it. He's come back from death, commands an army quite willing to die for him without a second thought.

Perfect for forming a little bubble around oneself mentally. You are a god. Untouchable.

And then an actual god comes along, and not just any god. Basically robot Satan. And you'd bested him before (with help) and ha ha, this'll be just like the last time OH NO IT'S NOT LIKE LAST TIME AT ALL, IS IT STEVE?!

For most likely the only time in his life, he is helpless, thoroughly and completely unable to end the suffering he's being put through. It is literally impossible for him to fight back in any way, regain even a smidgen of control, physically OR psychologically... and he can't even hope for the sweet release of death, as Unicron has no intention of letting him go. Ever. And the thing that holds him in thrall is also out to obliterate the very thing Megatron started his campaign over in the first place, his homeworld he longed to bring back to glory (sure, a twisted version of glory, but still). AND on top of that, that this dark god suddenly has the means to do so is basically Megatron's fault what with the whole "injecting Dark Energon" thing. Meggy nearly lost EVERYTHING and would have had an eternity to enjoy it as Unicron tormented him for fun.

That'd pop that bubble pretty good, methinks. Give a sudden attack of the empathy. A case of the "this is how YOU are to everyone else".

On top of that, maybe when Unicron was expelled from Megatron's body some of the evil in Megatron's soul left along with Unicron's evil as well.

After all, a lot of what turned Megatron into the evil villain he originally became was brought about by the corrupting properties of Dark Energon (A.K.A. Unicron's stuff) back when Megs first tried it out during the war.

Caelus wrote:My wife pointed out something interesting about the prehistoric Predacons. I said that everyone was complaining because transforming for them mostly consisted of them just standing up-right. She essentially said, 'So? That's what our ancestors did.'

I don't know. I liked the Predacons in Prime. They may not have been necessary, but they were fun characters to deal with.

I also don't see why some people are claiming that Skylynx and Darksteel were just a couple of generic brutes. They were minor characters surely, but their character traits are distinct. Skylynx is stubborn and bitter and Darksteel's a chucklehead. My need for more Predacons was fulfilled in this movie with these two.

By "Kim Yura" & "Zimmo81"

Henry921 wrote:You can always be counted on to listen to reason, Pryme.

Dead Metal wrote:Have you ever, and i mean ever seen/read/heard something that is completely original and does not copy/homage/pay tribute to something else? Here's a hint: Nope. You never have and you never will.

PrymeStriker wrote:I also don't see why some people are claiming that Skylynx and Darksteel were just a couple of generic brutes. They were minor characters surely, but their character traits are distinct. Skylynx is stubborn and bitter and Darksteel's a chucklehead.

They're stock characters. Archetypes whose personalities go unexplored and undeveloped beyond what is initially known about them. They have as much personality as most of the cast of the G1 cartoon, which isn't a good thing after having come 30 years away from that level of characterization.

I mean, just look at how much the movie went into exploring and personifying Bumblebee, who up until now kinda felt like an extra or a nobody in the cartoon. Skylynx and Darksteel got no such quality of treatment, being nothing more than character foils to everyone they interacted with.

Caelus wrote:My wife pointed out something interesting about the prehistoric Predacons. I said that everyone was complaining because transforming for them mostly consisted of them just standing up-right. She essentially said, 'So? That's what our ancestors did.'